Jazz Articles

Our daily articles are carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. You can find more articles by searching our website, see what's trending on our popular articles page or read articles ahead of their published dates on our Coming Soon page. Read our daily album reviews.

Year in Review

C. Andrew Hovan's Top 10 for 2014

by C. Andrew Hovan
January 4, 2015

This will be a first in some time. For a variety of reasons, I had to curtail my writing activities about five years ago. As a result, my limited work for All About Jazz consisted mainly of photography and live reviews. As a result, I felt less then prepared in previous years to present any kind of coverage of the “end of the year" variety. However, over the past twelve months, I have found myself back in the loop. I ...

Bailey's Bundles

Notable and Nearly Missed 2014

by C. Michael Bailey
January 4, 2015

As I have grown older, I have come to the startling and disheartening realization that I will not be able to read all the books there are, and, more importantly, listen to all the music there is (much less write about it). I otherwise appreciate a finite lifespan, but not when it comes to books and music. For a genre of music garnering a percentage of listeners in the single digits, jazz is represented disproportionately in the market place.

Album Review

Archie Shepp: Archie Shepp And The New York Contemporary Five

Read "Archie Shepp And The New York Contemporary Five" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
January 4, 2015

The New Thing is now old hat; all those squawking saxophones, blipping trumpets and discordant piano explorations a thing of the past. With its arrival in the early 1960s, jazz reached the end of its historical road. The New Thing wasn't The Shape Of Jazz To Come, as an Ornette Coleman album title had it. It was simply the final stop on the music's path from New Orleans. This, and all the other stops, could be revisited ...

Album Review

Barker / Dunmall / Dahl: Luddite

Read "Luddite" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 4, 2015

This is the second album emanating from celebrated British saxophonist, Paul Dunmall's 2012 visit to New York City, performing at the Vision Festival, and follows his initial 2013 appearance for New Atlantis Records on a date led by guitarist Edward Ricart, titled Chameleon. Hence, top New York City-based improvisers, drummer Andrew Barker and bassist Tim Dahl--the latter appearing on three tracks, lend their faculties for a set that poses a myriad of irregular rhythmic explorations. And while Dunmall's explosive tenor ...

Year in Review

Top 15 "Most Read" Interviews: 2014

by Michael Ricci
January 3, 2015

All About Jazz tracks how often an interview is read, and the interviews listed below represent our top 15 published in 2014. Ron Aprea's Tribute to John Lennon by Nicholas F. Mondello Published: August 19, 2014 Takuya Kuroda: Rising Son by DanMichael Reyes Published: February 19, 2014 Justin Faulkner: Serving the Music by Paul Naser Published: April ...

Album Review

Ben Tyree/BT3: Burn it! LIVE

Read "Burn it! LIVE" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
January 3, 2015

Even prior to moving to New York from his native Washington DC in 2002 Ben Tyree was genre-bending in Miscellaneous Flux, fusing hip-hop, jazz and punk vocabulary. His outright debut as leader, re:Vision (Sonic Architectures, 2010) was a hard-grooving take on contemporary jazz-fusion featuring DJ Logic and John Medeski. That template flew out the window on Thoughtform Variations (Sonic Architectures, 2012), a bold solo acoustic venture of sophisticated harmonics and alternative tunings that drew on jazz, folk, blues and classical ...

Year in Review

Top 12 "Most Read" and "Most Recommended" Articles: 2014

by Michael Ricci
January 3, 2015

All About Jazz tracks how often an article is read and recommended, and the articles listed below represent our top twelve published in 2014. Top 12 “Most Read" Articles Catching Up With Ron Aprea's Tribute to John Lennon by Nicholas F. Mondello Published: August 19, 2014 Live Reviews King Crimson at The Warfield by John Kelman Published: October 11, 2014 Interviews Takuya Kuroda: Rising ...

Rediscovery

John Martyn: Grace & Danger

by John Kelman
January 3, 2015

John Martyn Grace & Danger Island Records1980 Today's Rediscovery is the late, great singer/songwriter John Martyn's classic Grace & Danger. Martyn emerged, in the mid-'60s, as a singer/songwriter with surprising facility on guitar and a pure, emotive voice. At a time when bands like Fairport Convention were exploring the meeting place of rock attitude and British traditionalism, Martyn's early recordings, like his 1967 Island Records debut London Conversation, were steadfastly acoustic and ...

Album Review

Keith Emerson & Greg Lake: Live From Manticore Hall

Read "Live From Manticore Hall" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 3, 2015

Emerson, Lake & Palmer were recognized as progressive rock's first super-group, framed on supreme virtuosity, extended compositions, melodic song-forms and over-the-top concerts. But during a 2010 world tour, Keith Emerson (keyboards) and Greg Lake (bass, guitars & vocals) delved a bit inward, like old friends who weathered the storm amid the trials and tribulations of the music business. Consequently, drummer Carl Palmer nixed any future reunions after a 40th anniversary performance in 2010 at a London music festival. Otherwise, the ...

Album Review

George Gee Swing Orchestra: Swing Makes You Happy!

Read "Swing Makes You Happy!" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 3, 2015

Swing Makes You Happy! isn't just an album title: it's a mantra and belief system that guides the George Gee Swing Orchestra, a little big band intent on rekindling the ear's love affair with music associated with a bygone era. Gee has been in the big band business for more than three decades, but it's his eighteen-years-and-counting residency at New York City's Swing46 Jazz and Supper Club that has afforded him the opportunity to fine tune and ...